The Impact of Transparency and Accountability Mechanisms and Bureaucratic Inertia: A Case Study of Work Safety Regulation

Abstract

In a competent authoritarian regime such as China, when we think about the application of the principles of transparency and accountability to administrative conduct, we tend to imagine the state as powerful and active. The harms upon which we tend to focus relate to those resulting from exceeding the lawful limits of power or the abuse of power. What we do not expect to find, and what administrative law principles in China do not address very well, is the problem when administrative agencies fail to act and the harms that arise out of this failure.